The brain receives information from the retina , then using a hierarchical method processes this information using different parts of the brain e.g. lateral geniculate nucleus and the primary and secondary visual cortex of the brain.

The main problem with visual perception is that it is not simply a translation of the image seen by the retina, making it difficult for scientists to explain what we actually see.

some animals don’t even see the world but rely on other senses e.g. bats and dolphins

Flies have what’s known as composite eyes , a TV run at 25 frames per second but to a fly this is very slow.

birds such as hawks can see up to 8 times further than a human. The range of distance is measured in dioptres , a child’s is 14, an old persons is 1, however a diving bird’s vision is 50 dioptres.

field of vision also is limited on a human to between 160-240 , where as a hare’s field of vision is 360 .

Different creatures vary the amount of brain is dedicated to vision , the octopus dedicates 50% to sight but we still don’t know how other creatures make sense of what there eyes see. No single creature can see all what others can. We forget that the human world of vision is only one such world.

6.
Homo significans The world is seen in different ways by different creatures, as humans we put a large emphasis on visuals . We do not always believe our eyes, we know that a pencil in a glass jar will look bent and that a moon closer to the horizon will appear bigger and that there are such things as optical illusions . Humans as a species are driven by a desire to find meaning . This relates to the title, because as humans we are all “ homo significans”- meaning makers . This is proved with a few simple shapes and lines, that the mind strives to find meaning in. What do you see here: Your more likely to see five pairs close together than 4 pairs more spaced with a line either side spare. We do this because the brain puts the closer objects together.

Hermann Von Helmholtz , seen as the founder of visual perception studies believed vision was a form of unconscious inference , (Inference is the act or process of deriving a conclusion based solely on what one already knows)

Two well known assumptions are that light comes from above and that objects are viewed from above , not below.

This principle shows us that when areas are overlapping, the smallest area is seen as the figure and the larger is the ground. When we look at this object, we see this as one object on top of the another instead of a hole in the larger area.

Gestalt psychologist’s believe the problem of visual perception should be considered as a whole.

Max Wertheimer believes that thinking happens in two ways:

Productive thinking - is solving a problem with insight.

Reproductive thinking -is solving a problem with previous experiences and what is already known.

Other Gestalts psychologist such as Perkins believes insight deals with three processes: 1) Unconscious leap in thinking. 2) The increased amount of speed in mental processing. 3) The amount of short-circuiting which occurs in normal reasoning.